A Coat of Varnish (27 page)

‘I’d trust him with your life,’ she said. She loved Frank, and she meant it.

‘So would I,’ Frank said, and then added with a professional grin. ‘That doesn’t mean I always find it easy to trust him with some of our little ways. We don’t like giving them away. Any more than he did, I hope you noticed. More often than not, our sources are nothing to be proud of. I doubt if his are, either. That’s how the job has to be done. Well, we’ve been driving on in the old groove. It hasn’t paid off so far. But we have plenty of feeds in the homosexual world. Not as many as we used to have now the law is changed.’

‘That was something anyway,’ Betty put in, with gentle but surprising firmness.

‘Not so much for us,’ Frank said. ‘Of course, our boys are digging into it now. Not on young Loseby much. He wouldn’t pick up working-class boys or layabouts. We haven’t heard a whisper of that, but Douglas Gimson might. We’re getting a few scraps of hard information.’

‘Three names on the list,’ said Humphrey. ‘Others? Perhaps that doctor, Perryman. I haven’t any idea why, but he was with her often enough.’

‘Not forgotten. There was that little lead. Didn’t come to anything. But there were those money dealings. That got us nowhere, but we haven’t forgotten. By the way, he’s the only one of them who hasn’t put up any cover for that night. Just dinner with his wife, and a patient to see. He doesn’t pretend that he has any cover at all.’

Humphrey said: ‘That sounds more sensible than most of them.’

‘That was our feeling, too.’

‘Anyone else?’

‘Do you know anything about Paul Mason? His girlfriend, or ex-girlfriend, so they say, had more access to the old lady than anyone else. She’s got perfect cover, though, like your Kate.’

Humphrey said: ‘I just can’t take that seriously.’

‘In this state of things you can take anything seriously.’

Humphrey understood.

The concept of Paul Mason was dismissed. It had been half-facetious. It wasn’t what Betty expected, though she had heard this kind of sombre conversation before, but the two of them became more facetious. Lefroy? After all, Lady Ashbrook didn’t recognise his genius. Alec Luria? The local parson? Betty hadn’t had any previous sign that Humphrey’s psychological taste could break down, and he was not only put off, but shocked. She broke out in an invalid’s freedom, for the first time that night: ‘Don’t you wish sometimes you had done something different?’ She was speaking to Humphrey, but against her own will to her husband, too.

‘Who hasn’t?’

‘I mean, wouldn’t you have liked to have done something positive sometimes?’

‘Some real concrete good, you mean?’ Humphrey turned the question, with an affectionate gaze. ‘Most of us are lucky if we manage not to do real concrete harm.’

‘Oh really, I told you before tonight that’s not good enough for you.’

At the mention of Luria, Frank had been reminded of his phrase about varnish, which he had heard from Humphrey, and spoke to his wife with a kind of pleading, with watchfulness about her nervous movements, and perhaps in an attempt to avert the disapproval of love.

‘Don’t be too finicky, my dearest. Everything you want is very fine and anyone who’s worth anything wants it. But it’s very fragile, and it could break up very quickly. I wish to God you’d open your eyes to that. You’ve heard of old Luria’s coat of varnish, haven’t you? You know, that varnish is bloody thin. Humphrey and I have spent a lot of our time trying to make it an inch or two thicker in places. That’s all. Whether it’s worth anyone’s doing or not is anyone’s guess. If I didn’t think it worth doing, I shouldn’t do it. You know that.’

‘Of course I know that,’ she said. She said it with a radiant smile on the fine-drawn face. She went on: ‘But I do wish you two thought better of what people could become.’

The two men smiled at her, and glanced at each other.

Although Humphrey and Frank Briers hadn’t appeared to clinch a bargain, they had done so, as Betty had also understood, that evening in her house. As the first sign of it Humphrey was to explain what his old office had been doing about Tom Thirkill.

He found the need for this mysterious. As Frank had said, it was the Special Branch, the small section of the police detailed for security work, who normally were used for a job of surveillance on politicians. Himself, he had worked with them often enough. But it seemed they had been warned off. He could see no meaning there. Further, he didn’t like the enquiry which Frank Briers had pressed upon him.

It wasn’t going to be congenial. Few people were more extinct than an extinct official; and that was specially true when one had been in the top stratum of a security service. An extinct official knew too much; what was worse, he knew the questions to ask, as well, or better, than the present officials did. They would know the way to avoid answering them as well, though not better than he did himself. He went to his old familiar office, still mysteriously smelling of sawdust. He made visits to his old colleagues. He had to call on his former chief, still in post, but just about to retire, before he could get a straight answer to a single question.

His old boss’ name was Higgs. He was a plump cautious bright-eyed man, once a classical don, who had retained a hobby for non-Indo-European languages – Finnish, Estonian. He looked less like a security officer than Humphrey himself. But he had a total addiction to his work. Unlike Humphrey and most of the other operators, he hadn’t started as a member of the impoverished upper classes. His father had been a small shop-keeper, and he had made his way through his academic skills. Between him and Humphrey there had long existed a feeling not uncommon among colleagues at their level in a hierarchy, perhaps even stronger in this closed system – not exactly liking, not exactly dislike, but something of the nature of guarded intimate knowledgeable suspiciousness, such as you can sometimes meet in secretive families.

Humphrey didn’t spend much time on preambles. Had they been tapping Thirkill’s calls?

‘What do you think?’ said Humphrey’s old chief.

‘I think you have been.’

‘It’s not for me to say you’re not right.’

‘Am I right?’

‘Of course you are.’

‘The only thing I can’t understand,’ Humphrey said, ‘is what in the name of reason do you think you’re playing at?’

This was an old quarrel. Higgs was a very clever man, he did his duty, he kept his opinions to himself. Yet Humphrey knew that he had the political instinct of some of the last Tsar’s less liberal counsellors. Anyone who was not demonstrably on the right was on the left. Anyone on the left was automatically suspect. Thirkill was potentially a man of power, and so he was more suspect.

Humphrey shook his head. There was no use talking about it; there never had been any use. And yet Higgs was smiling with obscure satisfaction, as though he was allowing Humphrey to waste his energy.

‘What have you got out of it?’ he said.

‘Do you mind telling me why you are interested, Humph?’

Sir Eric Higgs was the only person alive who used that diminutive.

‘You’ve heard of the Belgravia murder? Old Lady Ashbrook?’

Sir Eric had heard, though not in his professional job, of most murders. He was an amateur of crime. He was very quick to pick up references, forgot nothing, knew of Humphrey’s former connection with the police. Maybe he could even have recaptured Briers’ name. No further explanations were necessary, after Humphrey said he would like any data they had on Thirkill’s whereabouts on 24/25 July. Higgs gave a plump cunning grin.

‘Oh, you’re on the wrong track there, you know. We’ve had some curious instructions from on high. I’m not permitted to tell you the reason. It’s nothing to do with what you were thinking a moment ago. Thirkill’s by way of being valuable just now in high quarters.’

‘Well, then, what were you really playing at? What was the man doing?’

‘I’m inclined to think,’ Sir Eric said, ‘we ought to do what we can to help. But I don’t think it will be much use for your purposes.’

Those would have been something like the correct ceremonies, even if Humphrey had still been one of the inner circle.

‘What have you got out of the telephone calls?’ Humphrey repeated.

‘Very little. Precious little.’ Immediately, Sir Eric became precise, businesslike, exhibiting a memory as automatic as Frank Briers’, better than Humphrey’s, which was good enough. Humphrey didn’t doubt that in detail he would tell the truth.

The truth was, however, not sensational. On the tapes, Tom Thirkill was recorded as talking to three or four Moscow Marxists in the parliamentary party – just general bonhomie, asking them not to stab him in the back more than necessary. Interesting that he didn’t talk in the same terms to the much larger group of the militant left, irregular Trotskyists. Not disciplined, Humphrey commented. Thirkill wouldn’t trust them; no experienced politician would. Humphrey added: ‘Of course, the man’s fighting for his political life.’

Sir Eric was not concerned about party factions. There was nothing that disturbed him on those tapes. Anyway, Thirkill was in favour in the highest places, for reasons which he still couldn’t tell Humphrey. The curious thing was, he was not dissembling, Humphrey had to realise. If high authority had a use for Thirkill, so automatically had Higgs.

‘Of course,’ Higgs said with avuncular caution, ‘we’re dealing with a remarkably cagey man.’

Humphrey was impelled to remark: ‘I’m glad you’ve stopped worrying about him–’

‘We’ve said that before, haven’t we? And it turned out rather uncomfortably different.’

Bland, obstinate as ever, but Humphrey had to accept that this was the mirror image of himself and Frank Briers. Brilliant suspiciousness through living at the centre of a spider’s web, feeling the twitches, losing one’s sense of the impossible.

Sir Eric remarked with subdued pleasure: ‘He really is remarkably cagey, you know. We have some evidence that he won’t talk about anything serious in his own drawing-room.’

‘He thinks you’ve bugged it?’

‘So it would appear.’

‘As a matter of fact, have you?’

Sir Eric gave a chairman-like smile. ‘No, we haven’t gone as far as that.’

He knew nothing of Thirkill’s daughter, and there was nothing about her on the file. But he did as he promised. Yes, there had been a check on Thirkill’s movements, which had continued up to the present day, on those same unproducible instructions. He would let Humphrey read the record of the night of 24 July. It was several steps down the hierarchy, in a small gloomy windowless room, taken there by Sir Eric, who politely introduced Humphrey to the incumbent, whom he already knew quite well, that Humphrey saw the papers. By that time Sir Eric had said goodbye.

The incumbent was called Kirby, once in the Colonial Service, sad, indrawn, at the same time requiring sympathy and giving none. He was not anxious to help, but he had to obey orders. Yes, they had been keeping tabs on Mr Thirkill (as Kirby called him throughout).

‘Have you any idea why?’

‘Matter of form,’ said Kirby mulishly.

‘Anything on 24 July?’

‘Usual
pro forma
.’

Thirkill had left 27 Eaton Square at 5.36 on 24 July 1976. Got into his own car, WSK 589N, and drove off via Belgrave Square, Hobart Place, Grosvenor Gardens, Park Lane. Agents’ reports, except to those endowed with romantic reverence, had the devastating prosiness of fact.

Who was tracking him, Humphrey asked. One of our men, said Kirby. He asked for the name. Kirby shook his head, for once looking faintly triumphant because he was not allowed to say.

Route northwards. Stop at public house, Lion, Henley. Two cars (numbers given) appeared to be following Thirkill. Occupants went into public bars. At 6.52 Mr Thirkill resumed journey. Stopped at private house (address given), occupant Herbert Grierson nothing known. Left house at 7.47. Continued journey to Hatfield. Parked. Stayed in car.

The account went on. Mr Thirkill left Hatfield at 8.29 and drove, speed 70 mph, back to London. Returned to residence 27 Eaton Square.

‘It seems a long way to get back to your own house,’ said Humphrey. It was a standard dodge. Humphrey himself had more than once driven round capital cities and arrived, with a certain sense of anticlimax, where he started.

Then there was a hiatus. The record faithfully reported that neither Mr Thirkill nor anyone else had left number 27 until 10.30. At that time a party had come down, apparently from two floors above Mr Thirkill’s apartment, got into three cars, all with German or Swiss number plates and driven away. Not followed: destination, by sources, Hyde Park Hotel. Mr Thirkill left 10.55 on foot. Movements followed. Through side streets to St George’s Hospital. Entered by front portal, exit by side door. Walked along Knightsbridge, southern side. Crossed to Hyde Park Hotel. Left Hyde Park Hotel 4.32 a.m., 25 July. Taxi to 27 Eaton Square. When Humphrey thanked him, Kirby looked as though he didn’t require thanks. When Humphrey added, ‘But this chap has left out the interesting part, hasn’t he?’ Kirby looked ill done by. He said: ‘He covered all he was asked to. That was the interesting part for him–’

Humphrey said: ‘If I’d been he, the interesting part would have been those miscellaneous visitors. Who were they? Why were they playing these games?’

‘All vouched for by their embassies. Highest credentials. Majority Americans. Names suppressed for official reasons.’

‘Did you get the names?’

‘We’ve done what we’ve been told to do. Then we left well alone.’

Kirby became less melancholy when Humphrey took him to the habitual pub close by. Before they left, Humphrey asked a question about Susan, but again elicited nothing at all. Since Morgan and his forensic staff were now certain that the murder had been committed before ten on the critical night, they had been given no instructions about her. There was no mention of her in the report. Until Thirkill returned, getting on for five on the Sunday morning, there had been no lighting visible in his apartment all that night.

No more official interchanges, on the way to the pub or inside it; over his third double Kirby said that he would have been content to finish his time in the Pacific. He couldn’t get used to the dark London sky. Not that it had been dark that summer, he said with his one spicule of humour.